


300 at Sea

by arial_destiny



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Black Whale, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Desert Island, Flashbacks, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Monsters, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arial_destiny/pseuds/arial_destiny
Summary: The Black Whale capsizes, washing Hisoka’s lifeboat out into the sea; he wakes up stranded on a deserted island with no one else but an unconscious assassin for company. In the paradise that was his new home, he faces true terror for the first time: loneliness and boredom. (Post-Black Whale Fic, manga spoilers.)
Relationships: Hisoka & Illumi Zoldyck, Hisoka/Illumi Zoldyck
Comments: 20
Kudos: 206





	300 at Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Since there’s no beach episode, I’m writing my own beach episode. But with more angst and a bit of survival horror.

He opened his eyes to see crystalline sky, the blue hues visible behind a barrier of soft white clouds, not a single bird in the sky, the sun not visible. Hisoka wondered if he was finally dead. Drowning was a rather unbecoming way to die.

When he brought his arm up to rub his eyes, he was surprised to find that he didn’t have a hand, only a stump where his arm ended in a knot of twisted scar tissue and then he remembered: right, Chrollo had destroyed it. That had been quite some time ago.

Hisoka got up and saw that he was bleeding, not profusely, but enough that another person may be concerned. The only wound that hurt was a stab wound in his shoulder. Another few inches and it may have pierced his heart. His head throbbed in tune with his heartbeat, blanketing a fog in his vision as he stumbled back down. Right, he was also missing a foot.

Concentrating his aura in his left hand and right foot, he reformed his limbs and used his Texture Surprise to change the surface of his gum to look like skin. Sand fell off his body in clumps as he got up again and surveyed the beach, a long strip of bay with dense clusters of palm trees in the distance further from the water. It was rather barren, not his idea of an ideal vacation spot.

He wasn’t dead after all. This was the second time he was certain he would die, and somehow he managed to survive again. A bit of pride bloomed in his heart. Or at least what was left of it.

Starting clockwise he started down the beach, there was a large rock formation along the shore adjacent to the fragmented remains of the lifeboat he had used to escape the Black Whale, it had not yet been swallowed by the tide. If there was no one else on the island, then any supplies from the boat would be useful until he found a way back to the mainland.

Hisoka enhanced his legs and made the jump onto the deck of the boat. The deck was split in half, both halves cradled by the rock formation that had split it, he found a supply bag of food rations,some water purification tablets, bottles of water, first aid kit, and some other miscellaneous supplies.

Cracking open a bottle of water, he gulped it down all at once, his thirst unquenchable, he craved more. 

Then he felt a weak aura behind him. He turned and looked behind him. It was coming from underneath the severed deck. Using his Bungee Gum he attached the wooden floor of the deck to the rock and contracted it, pulling the wooden deck boards right off.

“Oh, it’s you.” Hisoka kneeled down beside the body. In the wreck that happened at sea, he had almost forgotten Illumi had followed him onto the boat. With a finger he poked the man’s face but he didn’t respond. Normally he would have tried to take his finger off for touching him.

“Are you alive?” He said. Again he touched his face, but with the palm of his hand. His near death experience had him feeling brave. Illumi’s face was cold but he was breathing. His breaths were very shallow.

“You’re not very fun when you’re unconscious are you?” Hisoka teased mostly to piss him off, expecting him to bounce up and slap his hand away. But he didn’t.

Leaving him in the boat wouldn’t benefit him at all. If Illumi was washed out to sea, then one of his favourite toys would be gone for good. With a sigh Hisoka picked up his body and slung him over one shoulder as he heaved the supply bag onto the other.

Hisoka jumped off the boat and back onto the shore, and into the dense tree cover until he found a suitable temporary shelter: a small shallow cave covered by dense underbrush. He slid Illumi onto the ground beside the supply bag and sat down beside him, his arm hooked around one knee.

It was a bit embarrassing being seen by another with his face all messed up, so he covered it up with Texture Surprise in case Illumi woke up.

He didn’t.

When the sun started to set, he wondered if he should kill Illumi. If he was never going to wake up, then it would be pointless wasting energy protecting him. Yet, after their encounter on the Black Whale the thought of killing him in his sleep seemed...wrong.

Hisoka touched the assassin’s face again, it was warmer than before, but still cold. It was like the face of a corpse. When Illumi was like this, he was strangely beautiful. Like a lovely doll. Pale and soft, so unlike his usual wide-eyed uncaring stare, it made him want to touch him more so he stroked his sleek black hair, crusted with ocean salt and slightly tangled between his fingers. 

  
  


Hisoka left the cave and explored the island. He found a stream of fresh water flowing downstream from the plateau at the center of the island. He encountered some wild animals, a pig-like creature similar to the animals they had hunted during the Hunter Exam, some strange looking animals with glowing horns, a sheep maybe. It must have been some sort of magical beast. They never interested him so he never studied them. Hisoka could only hope they were edible. Then there were large beetles, slugs, rodents. 

The palm trees by the edge between the shore and the forest had fruits that were like three bulbous masses fused together. Hisoka cracked one open and tasted it. It was sweet. He had always loved sweet food.

In the ocean there were fish and crustaceans. He caught one the size of his head using his Bungee Gum and stuck a branch through it to kill it.

Taking stock of the island he noticed several important facts: there was no other humans on the island but him (and Illumi, assuming he wasn’t dead already), there was plenty of edible food (assuming they were not poisonous), there was fresh water (though limited) and there were no other islands in sight. The cloud cover and dim skyline made it difficult to ascertain if there were other islands, he would have to wait until the sun peaked out.

By the time he had come back to Illumi’s body in the cave, it was already night time. He brought back some of the bulbous fruit and the fish. Raw fish was not one of his favoured foods and he had no idea how to start a fire. Then he remembered the supply bag and found a fire starter and matches. Gathering some stones and dry sticks, he lit a small fire pit and roasted the fish over it.

Hisoka sighed. This was really the worst case scenario. It was an island at least two weeks by boat from civilization, he was alone with no one strong to fight, and no way off the island because his boat was beyond saving. He would have to jerk off with his own hand for the rest of his life. However long that would be.

It was a fate worse than death. 

He turned to Illumi’s body. He had no choice. He didn’t want to be alone.

Tilting Illumi’s head back, he straddled his chest. With one hand he sent out his nen into his body which didn’t resist as he pumped his lungs and heart, then he dipped down and pinched his nose and blew air into his mouth. He alternated between compressions and breaths for several minutes. It didn’t seem to work.

Maybe Illumi was dead after all.

And he was really alone.

Suddenly the other man twisted to the side beneath him, spitting out water tinged in red blood onto the floor of the cavern.

“Hm, so you are still alive.” Hisoka got off the other’s body before he got stabbed with a needle again. His shoulder wound still groaned when he moved it too much. But Illumi didn’t try to stab him, he kept coughing and moaned and he held his head in his arms.

“Are you hurt?” Hisoka asked.

“Who…” Illumi blinked, “Hisoka?”

“Yes, I am Hisoka.”

“Where...what did you do?”

Hisoka shrugged. “I guess I saved your life, you own me one now.”

Illumi looked at him as if he was struggling to think, Hisoka had never seen him so disoriented and weak before. The assassin was normally unflappable.

Hisoka touched his long black hair again and when his fingers came back wet, he licked it. Blood. 

“You have a head wound.” He said, mostly to himself. How had he not realised it earlier?

“What...happened?” Illumi said between laboured breaths. Then his eyes cleared up. “We’re supposed to kill each other.”

“Yes,” Hisoka nodded, “what else do you remember?”

“I was on the third tier deck, then the intercom alarms went off…” Illumi rubbed his own head, then stared at the clotted blood on his hands. “I can’t remember.”

Hisoka smiled. Interesting. So he didn’t remember. “Well, you did hit yourself pretty hard against the boat.”

“The boat?”

“Yes, the boat we escaped in, that’s why we are here on this island now.”

“What happened to the Black Whale?”

“Oh, it sank.” Hisoka replied simply. 

“Oh.”

They stayed silent as Illumi tried to get up. Hisoka gave him the water bottle he had refilled at the stream and the first aid kit. He watched Illumi methodically dress his own wounds.

“I’m sure you’ll remember eventually, when your head wound gets better.” He said and licked his lips. Oh this would be amusing. He approved of this turn of events.

“Hm, do you still want me to kill you?” Illumi said, finally turning to look at him.

“Well, it’s not really fun when you’re stuck on a deserted island. I’ll put the contract on hold until we get off this island.”

“Oh,” the other stared at him, “you’re not my first choice for someone to be trapped alone on an island with.”

“Of course, you probably prefer to be with Killua. How about...do you prefer me or Chrollo?”

Illumi wrapped his arms around his knees, seemingly to honestly think about the answer, then, “I think I prefer to be stuck with you.”

Hisoka grinned. 

“That’s not much of a compliment you know.” Illumi shrugged, “is Chrollo dead?”

“I wonder,” Hisoka looked out the mouth of the cave. 

“It doesn’t matter, I don’t really care about Chrollo.” Illumi sighed and got up and looked around, winced as he touched his head. “Where is Kalluto?”

“I don’t know.” Hisoka said.

“Are you lying to me?”

“Guess.”

Illumi made a face like he was trying to scrunch his eyebrows into his eye socket. Hisoka continued to grin and leaned back against the cavern wall. It was cool and slightly dampened his clothes. 

“I’ll kill you if you’re lying to me about Kalluto.”

“I really don’t know. I was only concerned about myself and you happened to be following me.”

He seemed on edge as he paced back and forth despite his head injury. It must have been gravely painful, yet he was completely distracted in his worry about his brother. Hisoka wanted to torture him a little more. Push him against the cave wall and whisper into his ear, _I killed your brother_ , just to incur his wrath. The wound in his shoulder throbbed with the heat melting down his spine into his groin. It would be much preferable to a sad death alone on a deserted island.

Illumi seemed to feel his thoughts through the intensity of his stare. “Why would I follow you when the Black Whale sank, rather than find my brother?”

Hisoka licked his lips again, wetting the flaking skin with the tip of his tongue. “You wanted to live.”

They continued to stare at each other, neither looking away. It was an obvious lie. Being near Hisoka was not something someone who wanted to live would do. 

He could picture the gears turning in the assassin’s head, all the parallel occurrences that could have led them to the situation they were now in, his distrust apparent, yet also keenly aware of how dangerous Hisoka was and unwilling to start a fight he could not win in his current disorientation. Hisoka wanted to cut his skull open and scoop out his brain with his hands, observe the folded mass until he could figure out what was going on inside his head. Displayed only for his own eyes to see.

“I’m going to sleep for a few days, don’t wake me up.” Illumi finally said and turned away from him, he went to the mouth of the cave and dug a hole, jumped inside and buried himself. Hisoka could feel his aura disappear as he went into a state of zetsu. 

He frowned. He really did like Illumi a lot better when he was unconscious. At least he could rut beside a warm body. Now he had to stay in the cold cave with only his lonesome self. Illumi always managed to disappoint him. Perhaps Chrollo would’ve been a better partner.

  
  


The second day at sea was no better than the first. The sky was still cloudy, there were no other islands in sight, only endless expanse of ocean. On a hill by the shoreline he built a hut for shelter. Hisoka spent the day using his nen to chop down trees, peeling off the bark, scooping out grooves so he could lay them in a rectangle pattern on top of each other, then chained together the foundation logs with the anchor salvaged from the boat. He split the logs on one side facing the beach for a doorway. By the stream he found some clay by its banks, mixing it with some sand and dead grass, he daubed the space between the logs to seal it.

As he picked the grime out from under his nails, he realised just how spoiled he had gotten with his winnings at Heaven’s Arena. For years now he had grown used to being wealthy. 

Once this labour had been normal for him, growing up in the slums of Glam Gas. Every spring he would help his mother repair the old chimney of their shanty house, replacing the logs and cementing them in place with clay and sand.

Hisoka let the structure dry, only for it to rain that evening, washing away his hard work. The next day the sky finally cleared, and he had to replace all the clay that washed out the night before. Then he built a roof out of planks he salvaged from the deck of the boat, waterproofing them with palm leaves he retrieved with his Bungee Gum.

By nightfall his structure was completed. The clay had dried up and hardened. At night it could be cold, and he started a small fire in the stone pit inside the structure, the fumes rising out the smoke stack. 

He stared into the dancing flames and considered how he would possibly escape this island. He assumed there were fishing vessels that came out this far since in Yorknew City the seafood auctions advertised farsea fish and other strange creatures near the edge of the ocean. With smoke billing out the stack of the house, and the house overlooking a hill by the shoreline, he simply had to wait until someone came with a boat. Hisoka was good at being patient.

Days passed. He counted each morning by scratching marks on the wall of the cavern as it gave him something to do, and he eagerly waited for Illumi to wake up, only to find the ground undisturbed. He slept on a mount of palm leaves inside his house, feasting on fruit and water from the stream. Fish was not one of his favourites but he supplemented his diet with whatever he caught that day.

Housing upkeep left him exhausted. He rarely found himself tired when fighting and killing opponents, the excitement left him buzzing with energy, but the physical labour of hauling around materials even with the help of his nen left him passed out cold each night.

On morning 10 he awoke to the sound of heavy rain. Fat raindrops danced off the side of the roof, louding splashing into the puddles that began to seep through under the walls.

“It’s quite wet in here.”

Hisoka’s eyes shot to the doorway at the intruder. The plank of wood covering the entrance had been replaced with Illumi’s tall figure. His hair was shiny with moisture and his clothes were soaked and muddy.

“Can’t be worse than a hole in the ground.” Hisoka replied.

“It was getting quite difficult to breath when it started to rain so much. Even by the cave the water table started to rise.”

Hisoke sighed. “That’s why normal people don’t sleep in the ground like a gopher. How are you feeling? Better?”

Illumi nodded. “My headache is gone, but my memory is still foggy. I remember being on the boat when it washed out to sea, but not much else.” The other stared at him, then crouched down and looked at his face.

“You look really different.”

Hisoka touched his face, thinking that Texture Surprise had worn off, but it was still there, his wet hair stuck to the sides of his face.

“More like when we first met.”

He morphed the surface, adding back the makeup he was used to. “There.”

“Hm,” Illumi tilted his head, “I think you look better without it.”

“Now you’re being mean.”

“I’m just being honest.”

Hisoka got up and combed his fingers through his hair, the leaking from the roof left it limp. All over he was uncomfortably damp, the fabric sticking to his skin, suffocating him.

Illumi sat down beside him, even more drenched, his eyes staring out the open entranceway, hypnotized by the storm outside.

“Will this house survive the storm?”

“Probably, the clay had already dried a few days ago, it should be sturdy enough for a little drizzle like this.”

From the corner of his eyes he saw the other shiver, his muscular shoulders contracting against himself. They were around the same height and though Hisoka was a bit more toned, Illumi was sinewy yet in the bitter dank hut he looked like a wide-eyed teenager again. 

“What’s wrong?” Hisoka asked.

It took a minute for the assassin to register his question, then he said quietly. “No one will be looking for us. They probably think I’m dead.”

The contemplation was something Hisoka, a person without family, would never consider. He never felt the need to be missed, or cared for, or desired. Only existing for himself had been enough to satisfy him. The man before him was a canvas of dejected sorrow, suffering alone in a place where the only other person could never understand him, only hearing his own voice.

“You’re concerned that your family is worried about you?”

“No, I’m concerned that my family thinks I died because the ship sank.”

“You’re from a family of assassins, surely death in the family is not something that’s unusual?” Hisoka had also watched him agree to die to save Gon for Killua’s sake, and he had been, at least momentarily, been the arbitrator of god, deciding which toy he had wanted to keep the most: Illumi or Gon. Not that Illumi was aware.

Illumi shivered and hugged his arms around himself. “What I mean is, dying in the line of duty is not the same as dying without purpose.”

Hisoka sighed and shrugged. He could never understand Illumi. He understood Chrollo better than he ever understood Illumi and they spent a relatively significant amount of time in each other's company over the years. 

“What’s wrong with you? If you’re worried then don’t die. It’s not like it's impossible to survive here. There is food and fresh water. Eventually some ship is bound to come by and you can go back home.” 

“The only reason a ship would come this far into the ocean would be to go to the Dark Continent. Why would anyone else go to the Dark Continent when the Black Whale sunk?” He turned to him, “unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There may be rescue missions, who knows? There were important people on that ship. It’s not unlikely someone would look for the VIPs.”

Illumi fumbled in his jacket and pulled out a small rectangular object. “I had my room reassigned to the 3rd Deck. I wonder if anyone would care.”

Hisoka continued, “besides, there is another reason people might come here. In Yorknew I once went to a seafood auction house that had sold some strange creatures caught far into the ocean, they were caught by illegal fishing vessels. I believe one will come by eventually, as long as we keep a fire going, they are bound to see the smoke.”

Illumi nodded. “That’s possible.”

They sat transfixed on the tears falling from the sky. Was this what common people called hope? Hisoka didn’t believe in hoping. If he wanted something, he went after it until he got what he wanted. Hope had no reason to exist. It was a raindrop on a clear day.

The storm continued all day, blowing in cold wind and rocking the palm trees back and forth, but there was no typhoon. The hut roof shook but the logs were sturdy. At nighttime Hisoka laid back down, body sore from sitting all day. To his surprise, Illumi laid down beside him and peeked at him from beneath his lashes. They were barely a foot apart in the cramped space and too tall to lay any other way.

Hisoka smirked, his tone a sultry song in this throat. “Are you joining me in bed?”

“I can’t dig a hole, the ground is too wet.”

His smile dropped into a frown. “That’s not what I meant.”

“My answer is still no.”

Hisoka folded an arm underneath his head and turned away from him towards the wall. “Well, then do let me know if you change your mind.”

“If the floor of the cave wasn’t so wet I wouldn’t be here. I do not find you a suitable bed partner.”

“That attitude of yours is exactly why you’ll die a virgin.” Hisoka grumbled. He was a bit offended. He could feel Illumi’s aura flare with anger beside him, only to quickly dissipate when he realised it was not worth the effort to get mad at someone like Hisoka. 

  
  


The next morning the storm subsided and they made their way to the beach to father more fruits and pick through the remains of the boat. Hisoka found a different fruit growing on a low hanging palm, it had a thick skin and curly hairs on the outside. He split it open and sniffed at it. The smell was sour and earthy, his nose twitched and he held it away.

“I have immunity to most poisons, let me try it first.” Illumi took the fruit from him, his fingers brushed against his gum hand. He took a section of the fruit and popped it into his mouth. He chewed it slowly, contemplating the flavour before swallowing. “It’s not bad. A bit sour, but not poisonous.”

Hisoka ate another section. “It’s a bit starchy for a fruit.”

“It’ll provide more energy if it's starchy.”

They finished the fruit and continued down the strip of beach towards the rock formation surrounded by lapping waves. Hisoka squinted. He was sure this was the right place, the rock formation was exactly the same shape as he left it all those days ago when he had come to forage pieces for the roof. Yet the boat was gone.

He scanned the waves for any fragments of wood peeking out from under the waves, but there was nothing. It was like the ocean swallowed it whole while he was not looking.

“Strange, the lifeboat is gone.” Hisoka said. He touched his index finger and thumb together to form a ring and used his nen to magnify his sight into the distance. As usual, there were no signs of life, only the blue sea fusing with the blue sky.

“Was there anything else valuable in it?”

“Not that I noticed, but the wooden planks would be useful for many applications.”

Illumi followed his lead and looked through his own fingers. “There really is nothing else out there.”

“You didn’t believe me?”

“You’re a difficult person to trust.”

“Hm, but you do trust me quite a bit, more than you should. Aren’t we such good friends?” Hisoka hummed. Illumi was not nearly as gullible as Chrollo so in some ways he was not as fun to play with. Illumi and Chrollo were both logical and intelligent, but were tied to too many rules and relationships and goals and that was their weakness. They both counted on him once and he had fooled them.

“We’re not friends. I don’t have friends.”

“Then what are we?”

Illumi turned his finger towards him. “Give and take. That’s all there is between us. I don’t care about you at all.”

Hisoka felt the corner of his lips twitch. “Oh really?” Illumi really was a fool. “Since I saved your life, then you should compensate me, don’t you think?” He grabbed the other man’s wrist and tugged it towards his chest, the heartbeat pulsed with life underneath his touch, sending shockwaves through his body, awakening his arousal.

He lowered his voice and whispered. “Why don’t you compensate me with your body then?”

Illumi glared at him, unblinking. Only slightly irritated. Interesting.

“Don’t touch me, I’ll kill you.”

He let go and chuckled. “I’m just kidding. Well there’s no reason to stay here, let’s go back to the forest and refill the bottles.”

They trudged through the sand back towards the dense blanket of forest where the hut sat on a hill, the smoke flowing out the stack and mating with the wind.

“It’s strange. There is something off about this island.” Illumi said.

“What’s strange?”

“Where there is a landmass in the ocean, there are usually birds that eat the fish that live in the coral around the island, or eat the bugs. But there’s no birds on this island at all.”

“But there are animals. I saw them when I was surveying the island. Further into the forest there are these pig-like creatures, some grazing rams and rodents.”

“Hm,” Illumi brought a thumb to his lips. “But the question is, what is the apex predator on this island? What eats the pigs and the rams and the rodents?”

“Well, now we’re the apex predator, aren’t we?”

“I wonder.” Illumi trailed off.  
  


The stream curled around the highest peak of the island in tendrils, a vine that twisted along its corridors, the lifestream of the island giving bloom to the fauna and wildlife that grazed on its outer edges. It was a beautiful sight. If this was closer to the mainland, Hisoka had no doubt it would have been a popular tourist destination. A small waterfall fell from some cliffs, feeding into the stream and blanketing it with a vibrant rainbow mist. At the top of the peak must be a lake of rainwater or something similar.

They filled the water bottles by the waterfall, taking the fresh water filtered by the silt and rocks. Illumi took off his jacket and dunked it into the water, carefully rubbing at the mud and dirt stains, willing it to turn green again.

Hisoka did the same. He had wallowed in his own filth for days and felt his muscles relax underneath the pounding force of the water falling from above. Peeling off his shirt and then his pants, he let the water soak through the caked blood and dirt.

He scrubbed at his own skin and hid himself in the shadow of the cliff face so that he could clean the flesh beneath his Texture Surprise away from Illumi’s wandering eyes. His remaining toes sunk into the slimy mud and bumpy floor of the river. It was an unpleasant feeling.

When he was done he went back to the river bank to find Illumi lying against a large boulder in the water, eyes closed. Hisoka couldn’t help his eyes from running up and down his body in admiration. Illumi had put up a good fight on the Black Whale, the orgasm was well worth the life savings he had put in his contract. 

The assassin was strong with bulging arms and rock hard pecs, but had a slim waist and long legs. He had grown considerably more toned since they had first met. Back then Hisoka had been shocked to learn that the scrawny boy before him, just barely past his teens, was a member of the famous Zoldyck family. That had been years ago.

The serene expression on his face made Hisoka want to tease him more. He strode towards him and pounded his fist into the bounder above him, leaning over him.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Illumi sighed. “Can’t you stay quiet so I can enjoy myself?”

“How could I when you’re like this before me?” Hisoka licked his lips again. “Has anyone told you before that you’re beautiful?”

Red rapidly rose up Illumi’s neck. His body duck deeper into the water.

“Stop it, it’s embarrassing.”

Hisoka was taken aback. He didn’t think Illumi could be embarrassed, it was very un-Illumi-like to be shy, he was a man with no shame.

“You’ve been propositioning me since yesterday, I don’t appreciate it.”

“Well there’s no one else around to flirt with, so bare with me.”

“Were you like this with Chrollo when you were part of the Phantom Troupe?”

Hisoka raised an eyebrow suggestively. “Are you jealous?”

“Hardly.”

“It was more fun flirting with Machi, to be honest.”

Illumi sighed. “You’re purposefully trying to piss me off.”

“I would never.”

“Stop it,” he closed his eyes again, his breathing slowed down as he said, “just tell me one thing, do you know if Kalluto is still alive?”

“If I tell you the truth, what would you do for me?” Hisoka winked. “Give and take, remember?”

The other opened his large eyes slightly, mouth in a grimace. “What do you want?”

“Sleep with me.”

“I’m serious, just tell me what you know.”

Hisoka replied, “I really have no idea. I never saw your brother on the Black Whale, he was not with any of the other members of the Phantom Troupe.”

Illumi let out the breath he was holding. “He must still be with the Zodiacs. There’s a good chance he’s still alive.”

“Hm, you really are an obsessive older brother, aren’t you?”

“My family is all that matters to me.”

Hisoka’s nose twitched. Illumi rarely knew his own heart. Never had he met someone who was so unaware of himself that his entire mindset was completely delusional. 

Reaching towards the head of dark hair, Hisoka tangled his fingers through the black strands, he brought his lips to the shell of the other man’s ear. 

“Where’s my reward?”

Illumi twisted his body underneath his grasp and for a moment, Hisoka thought he was going to get stabbed with another needle and his shoulder jerked in protest. Instead he felt cold wetness at the corner of his mouth, the sensation a seed that spread its roots down his tongue and through his spine until he yanked himself away.

He looked down at the assassin, his jaw hanging. Illumi had kissed him.

“That’s all you’re getting.” Illumi said and saundered away from him, back to the shore where his clothes were laid out on a flat boulder to dry in the sun. 

No words could form in his throat. Hisoka was rendered speechless. Perhaps that was Illumi’s plan all along: to shut him up. Bitterness seeped into his mouth where he had bit his own tongue in surprise. His excitement died at the thought that Illumi had managed to one-up him, like freezing water doused on his amusement, leaving him stiff and alone in the river, aroused yet unfulfilled at the same time.

  
  


Hisoka scratched a horizontal mark across the four vertical marks on the cavern wall. 45 days. It had been a month and a half since he’d landed on the island. It had been almost a week since he last saw Illumi. He only came by the hut when it started to rain heavily and the ground was too wet to sleep in which occurred with uncomfortable regularity. The past few days had been uncharacteristically dry.

The rain caused another issue which irritated him, and that was washing out the clay from the wall chinks. He started pounding wedges of wood between the slats to keep the water out, taking advantage of the dry days to renovate. It was boring and he was tired of the constant maintenance on the hut, but he also hated waking up wet from head to toe. 

As he trudged through the forest, he fell upon a gathering of pigs, the same ones he had spotted when he first arrived. Fish was getting a bit tiring to eat day after day, so he watched them wiggle up and down the paths between the trees. If he remembered correctly, they had a weakness on their forehead where they could be easily disabled.

Suddenly one jumped out from under a bush, raised its head and squealed. The other pigs followed it, raising their heads and squealing before they all stampeded away, their heavy hooves flattening the vegetation and horns pulling apart vines from the trees. Curious. 

Hisoka went the opposite way of the pig herd, towards whatever must have scared them. He travelled maybe ten minutes by foot when he came upon a clearing. In the middle of the clearing, was a river of blood. He could smell the iron: thick, heavy in his lungs, like smog.

At the center were a mount of corpses, around ten pigs with their bodies torn apart as if something grabbed them by the belly and ripped outwards until their intestines lay hanging from the bushes like christmas decorations, blood infesting dirt with a mahogany sheen that trailed off deeper into the forest.

Surely Illumi could not be behind this? It was a bit gruesome for him. His nose twitched at the fleshy odour. They had not died long ago. This was recent.

He looked around, thinking about what Illumi said: _what is the apex predator on this island?_

Hisoka frowned. He had no intention of finding out. He jumped into the trees and kept a survey on the ground, looking for a monster that may be lurking on the forest floor, following the trail of blood until it disappeared at a cavern entrance. There was a foreign feeling inside of him. The feeling that he should flee. He was not prepared for an encounter with whatever creature could tear about ten large pigs like cutting through paper, so he made a mental map of where the cave was in his head and went back to his hut.

  
  


The warmth of the fire greeted him. To his surprise, Illumi was already there, pushing flat wedges between the chinking. 

“Oh, there are you.” Illumi said without looking away from his craft.

“What are you doing here?” 

The sky was clear with no signs of rain.

Illumi didn’t reply, he kept stuffing more rocks in the spaces between the logs.

Hisoka sighed. “So even you get bored, it seems.”

He joined Illumi on the floor, taking a swig of water before he resumed pounding wood and bark into the chinks. “What do you do for fun, anyways?”

“I don’t have any hobbies.”

“Well you should get some, because we might be here for a long time.”

Illumi turned to look at him and picked up an object he had on the ground beside him. Hisoka turned to look at it, it was a long flat piece of shale that looked like it was wracked until the tip was sharp.

“I made this to carve wood.”

“How?”

“I hit it against a rock until it got sharp, it took a few days.”

A snort burst up Hisoka’s nose. Grabbing his stomach, he started laughing and he couldn’t stop.

Illumi lowered his brows at him, “What?”

Hisoka breathed deeply to catch his breath. “Sorry, the picture of a great Zoldyck assassin hitting a rock against a rock for days was just too funny. I should’ve kept it in my head.”

Crossing his arms, Illumi turned his body around and leaned against the wall. “Well what have you been up to that’s so much more productive?”

Hisoka smirked. “I found something interesting today while I was out hunting one of those pigs.”

Illumi nodded. “Hm, I guess we haven’t eaten one yet, it seems like too much meat for the two of us, it would be a waste of the pig.”

“I suppose, but that’s not the interesting part.” He explained to Illumi about the mountain of pig corpses and the cave.

“I see, interesting,” Illumi rested his head on his palm. “There must be some creature living there, eating the animals.”

“Do you want to go kill it?”

“There’s no point in killing it, probably not worth the effort. It might even mess up the ecosystem of the island.”

Hisoka pointed a finger at him. “You’re the one who’s bored, it's more fun than sitting here pounding wood into gaps. We should go hunt it. Aren’t we hunters?”

Illumi sighed, giving in. “Show me where the corpses are. They’re still fresh, aren’t they?”

“Relatively.”

“Then we can take some of the meat and cook it, without having to waste a whole pig.”

The magician sighed and ruffled his hair. “I suppose, not as fun as killing the beast though.”

  
  


When they reached the clearing, the corpses were gone. The pool of blood was still there, but all the bodies, even the bones, were gone.

“I guess it came back to finish its meal.” Hisoka said. It had to be huge to gobble up ten carcasses without leaving a trace, or perhaps it just moved them into its cave but there were no blood trails on the ground.

“I wonder,” Illumi paced along the bloody trail, “what if we kill a pig, eat some for dinner and then leave the rest in front of the cave to lure out the creature?”

“Hm, that sounds fun.” 

They jumped from tree to tree in the forest, looking for another herd of pigs. When they found one along the bank of the river that separated from its herd, Illumi hit it in the forehead with a needle, knocking it out immediately.

They cut off one of its legs and Illumi brought it back to the hut to roast over the fit pit while Hisoka did all the hard work of dragging it back to where he found the cave, leaving a trail of his nen for Illumi to follow.

At the mouth of the cave, he strung the pig into a tree with his Bungee Gum and waited a distance away in another tree, and waited with anticipation of meeting face to face with the beast.

He waited until Illumi joined him. They sat silently in the tree for what seemed like hours, staring at the cavern but nothing came out, not even small rodents or bugs. By sunset, Hisoka had given up, deciding that the endeavor was boring and not worth the effort. Perhaps Illumi was right.

“I’m leaving,” Hisoka said.

“Wait,” Illumi wrapped the pig carcass with vines, securing it midair below the forest canopy. Hisoka let go of his Bungee Gum and watched the pig dangle back and forth in the breeze as if it was on a meat hook.

They went back to the hut, enjoying their dinner of pork and a strange root plant Illumi had found.

“Not bad, it tastes like that pig from the Hunter Exam,” Hisoka washed off his hands in the ocean, letting the lapping tide tickle his bare feet. He turned to Illumi, “are you staying here tonight?”

“Hm, I don’t want to sleep beside you. You should make me a house beside yours.”

Hisoka glared at him. “Trust me, the maintenance on one hut is enough boredom, I’m not making two.” 

“I guess I’ll stay with you then.” Illumi said it so quietly, Hisoka almost didn’t hear him. Illumi was not the type of person who ever felt lonely, so perhaps like Hisoka, he had sensed the inherent danger of the beast in the cave, and decided that being alone could be fatal.

In the evening they fixed the roof. Illumi had found a plant with long thorns that were tough and hard as nails. They pounded them through the palms and wood planks. Hisoka hoped it was enough to waterproof the roof when it next rained.

They slept beside each other, the small hut clearly too narrow for two adult men and he was thankful that the assassin stayed completely still in his sleep, and his breathing was so soft it was barely audible. If he didn’t know any better he would have mistaken him for a corpse.

  
  


The next morning they were greeted with a peculiar sight.

Laid out on the pristine white beach was the fleshy bones of a pig, gristly white in the sun, organs gorged out, swarming with flies, missing a leg.

  
  


When the scratches on the cave wall reached 70, Hisoka started building a boat. He was a patient man, but his patience was stretched so thin it was on the verge of breaking. As he sat staring at his reflection in the stream and cutting off his growing beard hairs with the small pair of scissors from the first aid kit, he drew plans for a boat in the mud with his gum hand. It kept him busy. All along the river bank were various plans he had made over the last few days, the issue was the lack of sturdy supplies like metal and plastics, he had to make due with what was available on the island.

Hisoka was also reaching the limit of his patience with Illumi. They had known each other for years but when they were together, they rarely spent long in each other's company so it was enjoyable, now just looking at Illumi’s emotionless face irritated him. He couldn’t even jerk off in peace because Illumi would turn to him and tell him to ‘stop it.’ That man was absolutely frigid. 

He’d spent most of his days gathering materials and testing plans for his boat just to avoid sitting in silence with Illumi. Often he wondered if being with Chrollo, or Gon and Killua may be more interesting.

Illumi had also grown an obsession with the cave beast. Hisoka supposed it was in his nature to be obsessed about something, and where there were no assassinations or family, there was a mystery beast. Nothing they did lured it out of its cave. Almost like it was watching them in secret. He expected at some point the other would end up wandering into the cave and he’ll find the assassin’s mangled corpse on the beach. His needles never had much effect on animals, with their thick scales and fur hides.

By the rock formation he built the skeleton of the boat, slashing the tree trunks with Illumi’s beloved stone knife and a crude chisel and hammer. The rock broke the waves washing onto the shore, making it an ideal place to leave it in high tide.

On day 90 he slept under the deck of his boat, the waves had rocked his exhausted body into deep slumber the night before. He woke up to Illumi’s pale face staring at him with those large almond eyes.

“What?” Hisoka said.

“You didn’t come home last night.”

His eyebrow twitched. They had joked before about being like a married couple but Illumi really was starting to resemble an overbearing housewife.

“I was too tired.”

“I thought you might have died. I thought you got eaten.” Illumi said, referring to the beast.

“Leave me alone.” Hisoka rolled onto his side, desperate for more sleep, the sun was barely up. If the island had birds, they wouldn’t even be chirping yet.

“You’ve been quite irritable lately.”

“You’re not my mother, or my older brother.” That should shut him up. 

Instead Illumi crossed his arms and glared down at him. “If you die, then I would be stuck here alone.”

“I didn’t think being alone bothered you.”

He didn’t receive a reply. 

Illumi ducked back above the deck and hopped off the boat. Hisoka thought he might have pissed him off again. He could never tell his moods. He used to think Illumi was emotionless unless his family was involved but lately he’s noticed his ‘tells.’ He would scrunch up his nose or raise his eyebrows very slightly, he would turn away from him, or his neck would grow red. It was like he always felt something but did everything he could so that no one around him would notice. It annoyed Hisoka when he didn’t get the reaction he wanted out of him. They were polar opposites: Hisoka didn’t believe in suppressing any of his urges and it pissed him off that Illumi suppressed all of his.

He passed out again, thinking angry thoughts about Illumi.

  
  


Water dropped onto his face in large splatters, into his nose and mouth and he awoke coughing. His golden eyes flew open, blinking away the raindrops that seeped through the deck, stinging his eyes. Out from below the deck, he looked through the opening into the sky, seeing lightning before the roar of thunder, like a beast warning of attack.

He jumped out of the boat, pushing the wet strands of hair out of his face and stared into the ocean. The tide was unusually high. Waves grabbed at the shore, stripping away the sand into the depths below.

There was rumbling, like something mechanical running over tracks, he squinted into the downpour, straining to see anything. It was as pitch as night. He stumbled away from the shore, and suddenly instinct took over. He enhanced his legs and jumped, his gum foot sprung him into the air. He grabbed onto the leaf of a palm. It bowed over and gently dropped him onto the ground. It strung back, snapping. Wind howled. Gusts rushed past him, stronger and stronger. He felt his body flung by the wind. An orchestral symphony of nature. 

Then it came. A huge shadow out from the sea. Hisoka heard its cry before he saw its form. It arched, then crashed onto shore, its scales gleaming wet, its mouth opened with long, knife-line teeth, and then its jaw crunched into the boat, splitting it in half. It turned to face him. Hisoka’s eyes locked with its eyes, beady and golden. Glowing in the darkness. The only thing visible in the rain.

From the depths of the sea, its long horned tail slithered out and crashed onto the shore. It slammed against the rock formation where he had been moments earlier. The boulders split. Blew into the wind in a thousand pieces.

It cried again. The sound pieced like a whale’s song but with the ferocity of a predator. Scales grated against the sand as its long, slender body flailed against the earth. The winds heeded its song, blowing faster and faster, until it threatened to blow his body away. He sent out his Bungee Gum rooting him to the ground and to several trees by his side.

Suddenly the beast reared its head back, and dove under the water, its long snake-like body following the arch of its movement, only to shoot back up like a spear, in its mouth a small whale. The beast’s aura pulsated. Hisoka felt it in his bones. He sent out his en. This was no ordinary animal, this was a monster.

He felt a cold touch on his shoulder. 

“We need to go!” Illumi’s hands grasped around his right arm and pulled.

“Do you see that?” Hisoka stood there, mesmerized by the beast, by its woeful cries, by its majestic power, by its call for death. It was not human, it was a beast that followed no rules of man. It was then, staring at it, that he knew terror. He wondered if this was how the Chimera Ant extermination team must have felt, face to face with something so unnatural it could not exist. It should not exist.

“We need to go!” 

Hisoka could not move. His entire being shivered with excitement at the sight of a worthy foe, or perhaps the fear he never knew.

“Hisoka!” Illumi threw his body around him. It was the first time Illumi had ever touched him willingly. Hisoka’s attention snapped back to the other man and he released his nen, letting Illumi lead him away from the shore.

He kept looking back and watched with fascination and horror as it gulped down the whale whole and slid onto the shore. It moved with astonishing speed, covering the distance towards the hills in seconds. It loomed over the small hut that had been his home. With a long cry it dove and its impenetrable skull smashed the hut into splinters. That hut he had spent days building and rebuilding was gone.

They kept running until they reached deep into the forest. Illumi picked him up bridal style and jumped onto the largest tree. It was almost ten meters thick, like the world tree on the mainland. When they cleared the forest canopy, Illumi finally stopped and dropped him against the trunk, on all fours he panted, and stared into the distance towards the shore.

Hisoka followed his gaze. There it was, destroying everything on sight. Was it angry? At them?

“A typhoon is coming.” Illumi said. “Trees are not a safe place during a typhoon, but this one should be sturdy enough.”

Hisoka forced his eyes away from the creature and towards the ocean, using his nen to magnify his sight between his looped fingers. Dark and triangular, he could see the outline of a funnel cloud approaching the island.

“Oh hell,” Hisoka said, his heartbeat racing in his chest. “Is that the same beast as the one in the cave, or a different one?”

“I don’t know, how does it move on land if it’s in the sea?”

“Maybe the cavern leads to the ocean.” 

Illumi nodded. There was the pig carcass it had strewn on the beach, as if taunting them. Was it intelligent? 

“What do you think it is?” Hisoka asked.

“An unknown species of magical beast, most likely.”

“Do you think it’s sentient?”

“It seemed to be angry at us.”

Hisoka pointed at the assassin, “you have been teasing it, laying out those traps, you probably made it angry. Why else would it show up now?”

Illumi plastered his body against the trunk, another strong gust almost blew him over. Hisoka wrapped his nen about both their bodies and the tree.

“Maybe it's the typhoon, maybe it came out because the typhoon was coming?” Illumi grasped onto his arm again. The sensation of his cold hands on his skin was vexatious. Hisoka couldn’t help himself and took advantage of the situation. His arm slung around Illumi’s waist, his fingers dug into the firm abdominal muscles of the other man’s belly, and pulled him closer until he rested his head against his shoulder. The assassin didn’t pull away. For a moment Hisoka thought Illumi might have _remembered_.

When the typhoon hit, they clung against the tree relying completely on his Bungee Gum to keep them alive. It splattered rain until they were drenched. The trunk swayed. Branches fell from above, some narrowly missing them. Cuddled together they stayed that way until nightfall. Desperate. Clinging to life. It was really unbecoming of two murderers to be cowering like this.

Hisoka spent the entire time transfixed on the monster. Watching it go back and forth along the beach. When the typhoon hit, it slithered into the forest, thankfully away from them. Perhaps it was also looking for a place to wait out the storm. Judging by its direction, it must have headed for the cave.

“Have I told you before that I’m not a good swimmer?” Hisoka laughed, rain smashing into his mouth when he opened it.

Illumi’s nose nudged against the crook of his neck, he breathed into his ear. His lips shivered against his skin. Wet and cold. He felt Illumi force himself still from willpower alone.

“Are you scared?” Hisoka teased.

“We don’t stand a chance against that _thing_.”

“We can’t be sure about that.”

“No boat can get close to the island with that monster guarding the shore.”

“...Probably not.” Had it smashed their lifeboat, marooning them on the island in the first place?

Illumi mumbled, “We’re never going to leave this island, are we?”

The question was left unanswered.

Hisoka pulled Illumi closer, the other unusually pliable in his arms. That was concerning. He shuffled his legs apart to make room for Illumi’s body and plastered his face into the soft black hair, taking in the smell of damp earth.

In his hardest days in the slums, Hisoka’s mother would tell him that human survival was based on two instincts: fear and lust. To Hisoka those two survival instincts were the same. Where he should have felt fear, instead he felt lust. At that moment he should have felt lust, yet he felt only fear.

_We’re never going to leave this island._

  
  


Day 92 felt like Day 1. Once again he had nothing. His body went through the motions, picking up the pieces. Salvaged from the remains of the hut, all he found was a single intact water bottle and scissors. Not even the emergency supplies from the boat survived the onslaught.

“What a pain.” Hisoka said to himself as he walked through the smashed shards of wood and clay.

“Well, where are we going to live now?” Illumi asked as he pushed aside rubble with his foot. 

“Does it matter?” Hisoka replied. Was there anywhere on the island that was safe from a monster of that size? 

“If it didn’t rain so much I could always dig a hole.”

The weather on the island had turned for the worse with the changing of seasons. It had gotten unbearably humid with constant rain. The fruit had ripened and fallen, the trees barren, many nights had been spent only half full. Hisoka estimated he had lost at least 30 pounds since he arrived on the island. Illumi had always been rather tall and slim but he started to look wobbly on his knees.

“We’ll just stay in that shallow cave for now.”

They spent the night on the cold cavern floor with only a bed of leaves to provide them human comforts. Huddled around the small fire pit glowing from the sparks they shared few words. Something had been lost between them in the aftermath of the typhoon. They could only wallow in their own pity and memories of the monster that watched them from afar.

  
  


Days passed like clockwork. Hunting, fishing, gathering, skinning, drying. 

Hisoka stared at the cavern wall and the task he had given himself since day 1. There were enough ticks that he would spend several minutes counting them all. He scrawled in the number and circled it. 114.

As usual of late, Illumi was gone. Hisoka had no idea where he went, he was never one for teamwork unless necessary and his previous habit of stalking the cave monster meant Hisoka had grown used to his absence.

He got to work repairing the small wooden structure that was the entrance to the shallow cave. The area enclosed was much larger than the hut and they no longer had to sleep side by side, but in some ways he had an unnatural longing for those days. It was unnatural as Hisoka never thought about the past, only the present and the future, but in his solace the idea of a future drew further and further from him by the day, slipping through his fingers like the raindrops from the sky.

When Illumi came back at nighttime, he would sit around the fire like a statue. The blankness in his eyes seemed to stare at nothing, turning over thoughts he would not let slip, fighting with his own emotions. Hisoka could see his unwillingness to come to terms with the fact that they may never leave this island. He’ll never see Killua again, he’ll never get Alluka’s power, he’ll never find out if Kalluto lived, he’ll never see his family again, he’ll be forgotten with time just another unloved Zoldyck failure. Those were the words that Illumi never told him, but he could tell from looking at his face. Hisoka had grown up unusually perspective to Illumi’s muted feelings, feelings he himself did not acknowledge.

Hisoka had heard people could die from heartbreak. He wondered if he would wake up one day with the assassin dead beside him, no longer with the will to live. He would not have that. Being alone on this island would be absolutely boring.

  
  


“Come with me.” Hisoka said to Illumi one morning after they finished their meal of charred roots.

“Where?” Illumi stared unblinkingly at the wall, eyes tracing the marks on the wall over and over like a record on replay, his head was somewhere far away where Hisoka could not reach.

“You’ll see.”

Hisoka got up and headed into the dense forest. He felt the need to grab the other man by the arm to make sure he followed, dragging him through the thick underbrush, flicking away bugs from his face and hacking at overgrown leaves and vines with the blade. 

They stopped meters from the entrance of the monster’s cavern, where they had once strung a pig into the air as bait. The cavern’s gaping mouth daring them to enter, a challenge that was in some ways inevitable. He walked towards it and away from the safety of the towering trees.

“What are you doing?” Illumi said, “what if it comes out?” He felt a hand grasp his own, relishing the feeling of warm flesh.

“We need to kill it.” Hisoka replied simply. 

“We’ll die.”

Hisoka crossed his arms and leaned against the tree behind him. “If we don’t kill it, we’ll die regardless. As someone who died once before, I think I have good reason to assume that dying fighting is better than dying while being chased.”

Illumi tutted at him. “You’ve always been foolish. Do you get a thrill from fighting a monster like that?”

“If we don’t kill it, I’ll never get to fight anyone else again and you never get to see your family again. There is no other option,” Hisoka grinned, “Surely you know the only solution to our little problem?”

Illumi sighed and looked down at his feet, tracing the pebbles and blades of grass over and over, then lifted his head and said, “I’m ready to die.”

“You should say, ‘I’m ready to win’ not ‘I’m ready to die.’”

“Unlike you, I don’t overestimate myself.”

“Unlike you, I’m not ready to die.”

“Being ‘not ready to die’ is not the same as ‘winning’ against that monster.”

They glared at each other. They were opposites, the two of them. Hisoka wondered how they had gotten along for as long as they had.

“We can’t go in unprepared like this. We’ll give ourselves one week to prepare, that should be enough time before the next typhoon hits and the monster comes back out seeking us.” Illumi said.

“How far does your en go?” Hisoka stuck his thumb towards the cavern.

“Around 75 m, maybe 100 m if I concentrate in one direction.” 

“That should be enough to detect the monster before it detects us. We might even catch it off guard.” 

They watched the cave entrance for a moment, waiting for any signs of movement.

“Well,” Illumi looked away from him, his fingers slid into the tangles of his hair. “I have no plans to commit suicide with you. So I guess we will have to win.”

Hisoka grinned to himself. “That’s the spirit.”

Finally Illumi stopped staring at the ground and met his gaze, his face seemed to crack and he was greeted with a rare upturn of his lips, two dimples formed under his cheeks. Hisoka felt the air catch in his lungs. Since when did Illumi have dimples? How had he never noticed before? He stared at his ass the whole way back home.

  
  


The first time Hisoka met Illumi, it had not been coincidental. He had long heard rumors of the famed assassin family, the Zoldycks, and he was well aware of how elusive they were. Just a photo of one of the siblings was worth thousands if not millions of Jenny. Hisoka had taken out a substantial loan to pay an information broker about the Zoldycks (if then later killing the loan shark was still considered ‘taking out a loan’). 

At the time he was in his early 20’s and just reaching the peak of mastering his nen abilities, he was itching to fight the head of the Zoldyck family as a test of his own skill. It was even before he found and killed number 4 of the Phantom Troupe. It was before he met and antagonized several of the Zodiacs. If he ever stopped to think about it hard enough, Illumi was the first formidable ‘toy’ he ever found.

The location given was an upscale lounge in a regal hotel. The Zoldycks had acquired the venue to cater to several of their frequent customers in the Padokian hierarchy, and the venue showed the lavishness afforded by the elite, a world so far from Hisoka’s own at the time.

Hisoka had foregone his usual magician’s attire for a suit vest and kept his hair down to blend in with the upper class crowd, he squirmed uncomfortably, formality had been a lifelong hatred of his. There were at most 40 people scattered around elegant tables in groups. He sat on a leather stool in the back by the bar and watched as the old woman on the front stage introduced the Zoldyck family services. He could tell she was a nen user, but she looked weak. A servant perhaps. The event seemed to be a waste of time.

Hisoka gestured to the bartender who came and took his order of whiskey over ice. He sipped it slowly while staring at the stage, willing for someone more interesting to appear. A procession of men and women in tidy black suits went to each table to talk over the unique needs of each of their clientele. He was growing impatient. His killing intent was hard to keep inside, threatening to expose his secret. It would be so easy for him to slaughter everyone in the room, but also it wouldn’t be any fun.

Maybe he should leave.

“Are you looking to have someone killed?”

The sound of the voice caused Hisoka’s back to jolt straight. His eyes focussed on a skinny man with straight black hair that fell to his shoulders with a soft pointed face, likely a few years younger than him, maybe still a teenager. He was dressed in blue Azianic attire which accentuated his narrow waist and long legs.

Where had he come from? Did he sneak up on him using zetsu? Hisoka narrowed his eyes and licked his tongue across his dry lips. His mouth moistened as he looked the man up and down.

“No, not exactly.”

“What are you here for then?” The man crossed his arms. “Your bloodlust is oozing around the whole room. I thought there was someone here you wanted dead.”

Hisoka smirked and leaned towards the man, carefully watching the blank expression on his face for movement. “I’m here to meet the head of the Zoldyck family.”

“He wouldn’t come to an event like this, it’s not worth his time.” The man sat down and gestured to the bartender who slid a glass in front of him. He turned the glass in his hands, half filled with a dark liquor, perhaps a brandy, watching it swirl the ice cubes around. 

Hisoka raised a finger and pointed at the stage where the older woman was still speaking. “Who is that old woman then?”

“That’s one of their butlers.”

“Do they communicate with the head?”

“That one does, she’s the head’s personal butler.”

Crossing his arms, Hisoka grinned wider at the man. “Oh? How do you know this? Are you associated with the family? You’re clearly not a servant.”

The man shrugged. “I’m the head’s oldest son.”

Hisoka’s eyes gleamed as he took stock of the man beside him, finally things had gotten interesting. His aura was much stronger than the butlers’, but he could also tell that he was not at his prime. He was barely a man, still more a boy.

When Hisoka didn’t answer, the man turned away from his glass to look him in the eyes. “Why are you looking for my father?”

“Well, I want to fight him.”

“Why?”

“Because I enjoy fighting strong opponents.”

The man pursed his lips. “Hm, but you’ll die.”

“Oh?”

“My father is a more skilled nen user than you are.”

The thought pounded blood through his veins, he felt his skin prickle and heat pool around his groin. 

“Then…” Hisoka bent down towards the other’s ear, he spoke against his skin, ravishing it with his moist breath. “Would you like to fight me in his stead?”

The boy shook his head. “We’re assassins, we don’t kill until there is a hit placed. We only kill for money.”

An idea stirred in Hisoka’s head. “Then if I hired you to kill me, would you fight me then?”

“No,” the boy shook his head again, his hair flowing like streamers around him, “I wouldn’t accept that job.”

“Why not? Because you’ll die?”

“Because it's frivolous. The price would not be worth the effort. Besides, you would not be able to afford the contract on your own life.”

“Interesting.” Hisoka smirked. The man was not yet at his prime, in a few more years he’ll be ready to be plucked, he would wait to savour it. “Are you saying I’m too strong for you?”

“Not at all. I could kill you if I wanted to.” The man didn’t blink.

Hisoka licked his lips again, he could not let this boy escape. The heat raged inside him, he could feel his pants constraining against his cock. One day he would eat this delicious fruit. “May I get your phone number then?”

“Why?”

“In case you change your mind?”

“I won’t.”

Hisoka waved for the bartender to refill their drinks then turned to the man again. “What’s your name?”

“Illumi.”

“Illumi, why don’t we become friends? We are in similar lines of work, you and I. Killing that is.”

“Huh?” Illumi looked at him as if wings had just sprung out of his back, he wavered slightly in his seat.

“What? Is there something on my face?” Hisoka asked.

The boy paused and touched a finger to his lip. “Why would you want to be friends with me?”

“Because you’re amusing. You interest me. I would like to see you again.” No, he could not let him escape. They simply had to meet again.

Illumi replied, “I don’t make friends. Assassins don’t make friends.”

“Oh? Why don’t assassins make friends? Some jobs are surely easier with more people?”

“Assassins will always end up killing their friends. That’s just how it is.” Illumi spoke with conviction. He shook his head and gulped the second glass of brandy in front of him. Illumi finished his glass and stopped for a moment to stare at the remaining ice cubes. He seemed deep in thought before he said, “I don’t mind having an ally, I never had an ally before.”

Hisoka placed his chin on his hand. “Neither have I, but I can tell we will have a mutually beneficial relationship.” For as long as it was mutually beneficial. And if he kept him close, one day he will also get access to his father, the head of the Zoldyck family.

Illumi held out his phone for Hisoka. Hisoka eagerly typed in his own number and called it, his phone buzzing in his pocket.

“Huh?” Illumi said.

“This way I have your number, in case you never call me back.”

“Well, I can just change my phone number.” The boy sighed and took back his phone. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Hisoka.” He watched Illumi punch his name into his address book.

Hisoka was about to leave when he turned to Illumi one last time. “Why did you come talk to me, Illumi?”

Illumi hopped off the barstool and shrugged again. “You looked dangerous, not like all the other fools here. I thought you would alleviate the boredom of having to spend an evening dining with clients.”

“Oh?” Hisoka bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. He licked the salty iron from his mouth relishing its taste. “Why don’t we leave the fools and go elsewhere then?”

“Like where?”

“How about back to my hotel room?”

He felt the aura around Illumi change. It seeped from his being, dark and insidious, warning him to know his place. “No, and you’re much too old for me.”

“I’m just kidding.” Hisoka waved a hand at him. “And I’m really not that much older than you, how rude.”

  
  


Hisoka rolled over to his side and propped his head up in one hand as he watched Illumi sleep, his chest rising and falling with each breath, his captivating grace, his pliable lips and he wondered why Illumi had relented that day when they first met. It would have been easy for Illumi to blow him off, after all these years of their acquaintance there was no one outside of his family that interested him, yet for some reason he was interested in Hisoka. 

Hisoka touched his own face and lightly applied his aura to morph his skin with Texture Surprise. Gone was the magician’s makeup and he touched his hair, stripping away the Bungee Gum that held its shape. Propping up his upper body, he looked at himself in the small pool of water that gathered in the low spot of the cave and he admired himself in the dim flicker of the fire. Underneath the nen cover he had lost his once handsome face. Perhaps he had once charmed Illumi after all.

With zetsu he approached Illumi’s body and bent over him, straddling his stiff sleeping form with both legs on either side of his arms. He touched his mouth to his ear. Illumi was awake, he must have awoken the minute he felt Hisoka’s aura vanish, that’s what kept things interesting between: he could never quite outsmart Illumi. 

He gently kissed the man’s neck and licked a trail of saliva down towards his collarbone. He expected a needle to his shoulder, or at least a slap in the face, but instead he felt Illumi’s breath quicken under his administration, a light gasp escaping into the cold wet air.

Peeling away the collar of Illumi’s jack, he bit into the soft flesh at the nape of his neck, the salty scarlet liquid dripping down the ivory skin, he lapped it up and relished its flavor. Finally, he was ripe enough to eat.

“We might die tomorrow.” Illumi said, eyes still closed.

“We might.”

Hisoka grew courageous at the lack of retaliation, kissing the edge of the small mouth. He could feel the furious pumping of the man’s heart leap with exertion. In the silence of the cave, his ears picked up every small sound, every gasp, every held back moan.

Illumi suddenly got up and pushed him back, turned around and onto his knees, arching his rear towards Hisoka. Hisoka started back, confused.

“Just get on with it then.”

“What?” Hisoka said.

“You want to sleep with me right? Just do it then.”

Hesitating, his brow furrowed. “What’s with this sudden change?”

“I don’t know,” Illumi said quietly, “I guess I don’t want to die a virgin.”

Hisoka couldn’t breathe. The air in the cave was stagnant and heavy, trapped by the wooden frame, it coiled in his nose and down into his lungs, sitting there like a weight until he couldn’t catch his breath. His arousal vibrated through his body. His fingertips trembled. His toes curled.

Hisoka lowered himself on the other man and spoke into his shoulder. “‘Just get on with it?’ That’s not turning me on at all.”

“I really don’t care.”

“You’re still not helping.”

Hisoka smirked. “You really don’t care who it's with? That’s not like you at all. I thought you were quite the traditional type, you know, the ‘not until marriage’ type.”

“Aren’t we engaged?” Illumi replied.

“Well, the contract’s on hold, but I guess that's close enough.”

“Just do it already.”

Their clothes were removed in sections, peeling away like layers of an onion, and his excitement grew at each new reveal of skin, parts of Illumi he had never seen before. The slim waist he admired, the firm ass he groped, the hard muscles of his abdomen he enjoyed with his tongue.

Between biting kisses and the new marks carved into his back, Hisoka entered him, his body reacting to months of abstinence, thrusting too hard and with too much enthusiasm for a virgin to enjoy, but Illumi was used to pain.

Hisoka moaned and pushed Illumi’s head into the leaves of the improvised mattress and thrust deeper, feeling the heat and pressure melt his spine and throb against his balls. His gum hand jerked Illumi’s cock which twitched and grew. 

He clenched tighter and tighter around his cock and he let out a breathless pant into Illumi’s ear. “Can I finish inside you?”

Illumi grunted as he nodded, his head bobbing against the ground.

Hisoka body pulsed in pleasure and he finished inside him without a word. He continued to touch the other man between the legs when he was still inside him. He felt the thighs tighten against his arm and Illumi’s body opened to him for the first time.

But as Hisoka stared into his blank eyes, unblinking turned to the cave ceiling, throat softly moaning as his own orgasm hit him like a tidal wave, he could tell that Illumi’s heart was firmly closed. Even in the most intimate of moments, he could not let himself go.

  
  


Frigidity washed over him like falling through thin ice, the cold water pulled at an unfamiliar pang in his chest, squeezing his heart until it dropped to the river floor. Refreshingly cool against his skin, the waterfall pounded into his back, desperately washing the regret off his body. 

His mind wandered back to the monster, the arch of its scaly spine, the snap of its jaws, the long curve of its teeth, how quick would his end be? Would the monster toy with him the way Chrollo had? Or would its beastial instinct leave him barely a second to react before he felt it rip through his body?

As he waded through the water towards the shore, feet massaged by the smooth stones on the river floor, he watched Illumi’s back and his eyes traced the fading scars. They must have been a relic of his childhood. As a child, Hisoka had been beaten more times than he could remember: by neighbourhood drunks, by older bullies, by shopkeepers who caught him stealing, but never his own mother. His mother had been a saint. 

There was a distance between them, and Hisoka suddenly widened his eyes as if he had eavesdropped on a shameful secret. Illumi was very pitiful. 

Even in these last moments of his life he only thought of his family. The family that made scars on the back of a child, which even in adulthood, never faded. And it was an even more sorrowful realization that Hisoka was the only one Illumi had ever opened up to about his feelings. The only ally he ever had was a liar and a cheat.

He truly was pitiful.

“Illumi,” he said out loud, unsure of what other words would form in this throat. 

The other did not reply. They had not said a word to each other since that morning. If they could not do the bare minimum of communication, they could not possibly win against the monster.

“Illumi.”

Hisoka waded closer towards him, his hand reaching out, aching to smooth his remaining fingers over the scarred back.

“Illumi.” 

He stopped a few feet from him. His chest heaved as he spoke again.

“Look, if it was that bad, that’s fine but we need to focus on the task at hand. Tomorrow we need to be ready-”

“I don’t understand.”

“Hm?” Hisoka flicked wet strands of hair from his face.

“I don’t understand why I feel this...inside me. Like I’m suffocating.”

Hisoka’s arms dropped to his side as Illumi twisted his torso to look at him.

“Why do I feel like...I’m suffering? Like I did something _wrong_?”

It was only a matter of time before those memories would resurface. “Do you remember what happened on the Black Whale?”

Illumi seemed to stare right through him as if he was cellophane. “What are you hiding from me?”

Hisoka breathed a lungful of air, it was humid and damp, he could feel his heart racing under the weight of his breaths. “On the Black Whale...you could have killed me.”

Illumi tilted his head, listening. Strands of black hair stuck against his stark pale face.

“But you didn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I-” his mouth opened and then he froze. “Explain.”

“I don’t have much to explain, you simply said that ‘you didn’t want to kill me.”

The assassin seemed to deflate against the current. His lithe body shook. Trembles flowed through him like the tide against the beach. His mouth opened and closed and his eyes shined with the threat of tears. The emotionless assassin he had always known was replaced with someone Hisoka did not recognize. 

Then Hisoka thought of his mother.

His mother had been the only human he ever saw as a _person,_ rather than an object. She had a strong drive to survive in a world that did not want her to survive, but she was a captive tied up in chains she could not see, with a veil over her face so she could not breath. In her last days she died suffering, never losing hope that destiny had plans for her. 

Hisoka decided he would defy fate and make his own destiny. Hisoka never wanted to be like his mother. 

When he looked at Illumi now, he saw his mother, a captive in chains. He had been taught to have no desires of his own, to have no wants or needs. He was a shell of a man pre-destined with a set of instructions and having feelings was outside his programming. He lived for the sake of his family. And now, as he stood there bare in the water he had come to know that he did, in fact, have his own feelings and he could not live with that truth.

Hisoka should kill him out of mercy, just like he did with his mother, but he could not bring himself to do it. Unlike killing a toy, he could not wash the blood of a person off his hands. It stained him.

Hisoka looked at the other man, his face a stark full moon crestfallen at his own failure as an assassin and said, “Is it really that hard for you to believe that you didn’t want to kill me afterall?”

“Why? Why would I ever hesitate to kill someone? I never hesitate when it comes to a job, I’m a Zoldyck assassin,” he replied.

“Well it's obvious _why_ isn't it?”

Illumi raised his head to look at him, his dark pupils saw nothing in the sunlight.

Hisoka glared back. “It's because you have feelings for me. You don’t want to kill me because we’re friends.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Then why did you agree to the contract when you spent the last several years refusing my request?”

“We’re not friends!” Illumi got out of the water and headed to shore. In haste he threw on his jacket and clothes, still wet against his skin. He squeezed the water from his hair and threw it over his shoulder.

Hisoka was immediately filled with anger. Maybe he was pushed too hard. “Illumi, enough already.”

With cold eyes, Illumi spat out the next words, aiming to wound. “That doesn’t make any sense. I don't care about you at all.”

Hisoka retorted. “If you don’t care at all, then why did you want to sleep together, then look like you regretted it?” The other froze again as he continued. “Isn’t it because you realised you finally crossed the line? Because you did something because _you_ wanted to and not because you had to as a member of the Zoldyck family?”

“Shut up!” Illumi yelled and turned away towards the tree line.

“Wait!” He felt exhausted all of a sudden.

“I only used you when you were useful!” Illumi shook. “You’re useless to me now. Don’t follow me.”

Those last words rang in his ear like tinnitus, following him around like an echo long after Illumi was gone. He would remember them for months.

  
  


Illumi did not return that night. The morning after he waited at the cavern entrance, waiting to start the mission to slay the beast, but he didn’t show up. Hisoka waited patiently, day after day in the shelter they had built, crossing more ticks on the wall.

Before he knew it, the tally swelled to 150, then 160, then 170. A typhoon hit and destroyed the shelter. He hugged himself alone against the great tree, his nen wrapping against the trunk and the storm pelted him with cold rain. He saw the monster again, a distant dot on the shore, wondering if it had found Illumi before he did. 

When he slept he would picture Illumi’s face, and he would wake up in the middle of the night, palming himself to climax while thinking of him.

Rain soon made way for the dry season. The last typhoon hit and left the herd of pigs decimated. Edible foliage became sparse. Hisoka watched himself waste away. Thinner by the day. How long would it be before he was dead?

There were no ships, he had lost the will to keep a flame burning, so no help would arrive. He was alone. Completely, utterly alone. 

As he foraged through the forest, he caught himself talking out loud to Illumi as if the man was beside him, hoping he would hear the words and come back. Eventually he gave up on looking for him too. Maybe he was already dead. Maybe one day he would stumble across his body and die beside him.

  
  


On day 182, Hisoka decided he’d had enough. As he counted the ticks again, his mind churned over plans to kill the beast. Hisoka never had interest in fighting beasts as he was only ever a connoisseur of strong humans, but the monster was as close to a rival he had aboard the island and he would choose his own grave: by dying while fighting, a fitting end for his life’s work.

For days he prepared by practicing his use of nen. He was rusty from the lack of combat, so he trained his body for weeks so that he could have a final battle that satisfied him.

On day 200, He stood at the cavern entrance, the ghosts of the day he came alone and waited for Illumi still haunted his memory. He waited, expectant, but no one came. His heart beated against his ribcage, reminding him of what was once there beside him.

Slowly he walked into the belly of the beast with only a torch he had fashioned in hand. Hisoka was not afraid. He no longer feared death. Death was something that was inevitable, the destiny everyone had that they could not avoid, the unchanging fate of mankind. 

The loud echoes of his footsteps bounced off the cavern walls which left him attuned to the mild smell of rot and mould. It was still wet in the cave, unlike the dry outside air that left him chapped and flaking, and the stalactites dripped a brownish liquid onto his head. There were no other creatures in the cave, no bats or insects. It was as if nature itself knew to stay away from the cave.

As he went deeper, he noticed the scenery change. Moss grew in small clumps on the rock formations, the scent of the salty ocean air drifted in and filled what was left of his nose. He stopped at the mouth of a pond. Green leaves drifted around the pond surface, it must have come from the outside. They had once assumed there was a passage between the ocean and the cave as the monster appeared only in those two locations. The drifting tide must have brought in the leaves. Hisoka bent and touched the pond with a finger and then brought it to his lips. Salty.

He was not much of a swimmer. The idea of trespassing on the monster's lair while underwater did not appeal to him. Focussing on his nen, he sent out his en. It went out about 40 m, not as impressive as Illumi’s had been but enough to sense the monster if it was underwater in the pond. He felt nothing, not a single sign of life.

He placed the torch against a rock beside the pond. Holding in his breath, he dove into the waters. The salt stung his eyes as he opened them in the darkness of the depths, sending out his en again, he felt the tug of aura above him and a ways to the side. He swam towards the source, estimating that he was under the cavern floor, and swam forwards and let out his Bungee Gum which stuck to an edge in the distance. He bid his nen to contract and it pulled him forward until he felt the edge of a rock face. 

When he resurfaced, his eyes met the drooping buttress of stone ruins. Light was dim in the large cavern opening, but there was a hole in the ceiling that spilled sun into the dreary darkness. Regular shaped tiles were stacked neatly despite their wear, as if at some point stacked by humans, a legacy of times long past. On the shore of the pond there were assorted bones, some of large animals like the pigs, others seemed to be almost human in shape and size. Fodder for the beast’s appetite. 

He sent out en and felt the aura of a ginormous form in the dark. It stayed away from the edges of light, as if in a state of comatose, perhaps tired after a large meal of pigs. Piercing golden eyes glared at him, but it seemed to not have noticed Hisoka’s presence. Reptilian creatures often did not have eyelids so the monster was likely the same.

Projecting his hatsu onto the walls of the cavern, he looked for ways to ply apart the beast’s scalemail. It was dense across its entire body but each scale was large and covered a great area. Its long tail was curled around its belly. Shadows covered its body but the light showed its form was similar to a dragon. Black lips pulled back and showed brilliant long teeth. He attached his gum to each scale, meticulously fixing each pearlescent oval to a section of wall and then around itself.

He leapt on top of a rock across the pond from the monster, stared his own golden eyes into the slits of the beast.

“Time to wake up!” He shouted and his aura flared around him. His killing intent shot out until it collided with the beast. 

Bright light glowed from its eyes, illuminating the intricate stone walls. It roared. The melody it sang was filled with sadness and desire, as if it had only hoped to sleep forever. Instead of lunging at him, it glared at him, urging him to make the first move.

“Do you understand me?” Hisoka said.

The cried again, its voice a low rumble echoed across the chamber. 

“Do you want to die as well?” He looked at the glistening white bones on the shore. “It’s hard isn’t it, being the last one of your own kind?”

It attacked. Its body stuttered as it fought against the confines of his hatsu ability, it screamed as it struggled to approach him. The force of its movement tugged against his body but he had wrapped it around such that struggling would only pull out its own scales. It careened against the cavern wall in a desperate attempt. Scales ripped out of its flesh and it screamed again in pain, whaling its jaw against rock. 

Long and thin, its tail flew out from under its belly and smashed into the rock Hisoka had stood on. He activated his Bungee Gum and flew out of its way. But the tail trailed him, wrapping around his remaining good leg and pulled taut.

He felt the pain of his tendons and muscles crushed under its force. If not for the twisted gum around its entire body holding it back, Hisoka would have already been dead. His aura provided barely any protection against its raw strength. 

“Are you ready?” He choked out just before it threw him into the stone wall which collapsed against the force of his body’s impact. 

Another cry.

Stumbling while holding his bleeding leg, Hisoka reached the shore of the pond.

“Let’s make this fight worth it.” He reached for the leaves on the surface and enhanced them until they were as stiff as blades. Throwing them like knives, they pierced the few sections of the monster’s body where the scales had been plied off.

It threw its entire body at him, jerking in pain, narrowly hitting him with the full force of its weight. Hisoka dove into the water.

It followed, splashing the water into the air like a tsunami in the pond. Moisture hit the walls, glistening the stone wet and slippery. Hisoka was not a fast swimmer if not for his nen pulling him away from the monster's grasp.

He soon realised his mistake. It was faster in water than it was on land. The water became dark purple as it bled, clouding his vision, but he could sense its aura and keep it from catching up to him as his Bungee Gum pulled him forward.

With his gum hand he reached out of the water towards the ceiling. His aura sprang until it latched to the hole in the ceiling and he contracted it, pulling his body out of the water and he flew into the air.

The monster chased him. It could not fly but the force of its propulsion against the water allowed it to chase after him with open jaws. It threatened to swallow him. In a split second he made the risky move of letting go of the aura attached to his hand. He jumped down and his gum foot collided with the monster's large canine teeth. It snapped down on instinct but its jaw could not close around its largest teeth.

His foot bounced against the tooth and he bounded towards the far wall.

The monster seemed confused, as if expecting to taste the iron of his blood but instead it only swallowed air.

Hisoka had no other plans. Its struggle had pulled off many of its scales, enough to bare its body to more leaves stuck into the thin skin underneath but would it be enough to kill it? 

He continued to glide around the cavern, relishing in his dance to the death as if they were in an arena of screaming fans, only his ears relished the whaling songs it sang instead of human voices. 

There was a whiz through the air. Then he felt the pain. He looked down and saw he was bleeding from the shoulder. The monster screamed, as though betrayed. He saw it fall against the wall and thrash. Stones upturned into the air, falling like an avalanche against the beast. He saw the ceiling collapse. The walls crumbled and fell in large clumps. It cried out for him.

His vision blackened, his body collided with the floor, at the same time a loud crash sounded in the distance. 

Was he going to die?

“Are we to die together? You and I?” Two lonely souls, trapped on an island they could not escape. He gasped and then he lost consciousness.

  
  


Hisoka stood at the large gate ornamented with stone dragons. The man who seemed to be the gatekeeper shot him occasional questioning looks, unsure if he should say something but likely also sensing that Hisoka was not a person to be crossed. 

He took in the sight of the great peak against the orange skyline. It had a sinister presence, which was exactly what he had expected of the Zoldyck estate. For some reason he had never come here before. He had learned where it was a while back but he had been distracted by so many other toys and multitasking simply wasn’t his strong suit. He had been so focused on playing tag with Chrollo he had forgotten entirely about his pursuit of Silva.

The gate cracked open, it swung on its hinges. He counted six gates opening together and Hisoka grinned, his hand keeping the sunlight out of his face as he watched pensively.

The gatekeeper was alarmed but relaxed when he saw that Hisoka did not move. The dark haired man on the other side of the gate walked through and let it slowly creek shut behind him. 

“Why are you here? I was surprised when you texted me that you were outside my door.” Illumi said and gestured to the gatekeeper who nodded and went inside the small outlook, closing the door and giving them privacy.

“You were the one who disappeared on me, leaving me to clean up the mess all alone.” Hisoka pouted.

“I didn't mean to, Killua had Nanika send me back home.”

“Ah, I see.” Hisoka scratched his chin. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in? Introduce me to your parents?”

“Why would I?” Illumi crossed his arms. “Are you here for my father and grandfather?”

Hisoka sighed. “That’s not what I meant, you didn’t get the joke. Well, normally I would be glad to meet them, but I’m actually here for you.”

Illumi tilted his head to the side. “Huh? What’s the point of coming all the way out here? You can reach me any time by phone.”

“Yes, but I came here because I had something to say to you in person.”

“What is it?”

Hisoka gestured behind him with a thumb. “I prefer some privacy, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, okay if that’s what you want.”

They went up a clearing on the mountain path. The view of the sunset was spectacular, the brilliant purple hues mixing with the glowing orange. Hisoka watched the sun make its way to the horizon in silence.

“So what is it? If you don’t have anything to say, I’m going back home.”

“How long have we known each other?”

Illumi paused to think, “I guess a few years now.”

“Don’t you think it's time?”

“Huh?”

Hisoka slipped a folded sheet of paper out of his pant pocket and unfurled it, flattening the lines out in his palm. He held it up for Illumi to read. His irises drifted right to left as he read.

“A...prenuptial agreement?” Illumi said.

Hisoka tapped the sum of money on the paper. “This is everything I have. If you sign this agreement, you will get everything I have when I die.” 

Illumi nodded. “But...why me?”

“I’m going to go fight Chrollo soon. I just received a message from the Troupe.”

“So you’re leaving all your assets to me, but why?”

“No, you don’t understand. I have no intention of dying by Chrollo’s hands.” Hisoka waved the paper in the air. “If you want this money, you’ll have to kill me yourself.”

Illumi snorted.

“What?”

“As if you’ll beat Chrollo.”

Hisoka felt the irritation rise in his chest. “What do you even know about Chrollo?”

“My father has fought with him two times already, I know what he’s capable of. You always overestimate yourself.”

“You should have more faith in me, in our friendship.” Hisoka teased.

“We’re not friends,” Illumi replied. “But I’ll sign it, it’s free money, I won’t even have to do the dirty work myself, Chrollo will finish you off.”

Hisoka smirked. “If you’re so fond of Chrollo, you can join up with the spiders if you’d like to chase me down.”

“It won’t be necessary once you’re dead.”

Hisoka handed the paper and pen he had brought over to Illumi who signed it with his name in an elegant script. Illumi then handed it back to him.

“You do know what a prenup is for, right?” The assassin said.

“Hm, yes I do, for an engagement with the intention of marriage.”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter anyways. In the end it's a valid legal contract.” Illumi shrugged. 

“So you’ve changed your mind after all, have you?”

“What?”

“You always refused to chase me. You said a contract on my life would be frivolous.” Hisoka said.

“Hm, I guess I did change my mind.”

“Didn’t you say that friends will always end up killing each other?” He felt his lips tug wider.

Illumi raised his eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“Are you afraid of what you might feel for me? Maybe it’s better for you to kill me before it becomes more?”

“Huh?” Illumi lowered his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

“Nevermind. I’m just rambling.” He put away the form and held out his hand for Illumi to shake. Illumi looked at his outstretched palm and then promptly looked away.

“You’re a fool.”

  
  


When Hisoka came to, he thought for the third time he must be dead. His head throbbed as he turned it against the soft surface. Cracking open his eyes, he blinked away his weariness and found himself staring into the deep blue of the tropical sky, it was like an image projected onto the ceiling of a dark room.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Hisoka turned his eyes away from the blinding sky and towards the familiar voice. It was only then that he realised he was sleeping on Illumi’s lap. He tried to get up but the pain in his shoulder made him fall back down.

“Did you…” he looked around the dark room, he was still in the cavern of the beast. Its body was half submerged in the pond, partially covered in stone rubble, “kill it?”

“Once you peeled away its scales, I stabbed it with my needle. It took some practice since I could not control non-humans before, but I spent a lot of time practicing the last few months on the animals on the island. Still I couldn’t manage to control it. It thrashed itself to death. Technically it killed itself.”

Hisoka nodded his head slightly. “Why did you come?”

“Hm, because if we don’t kill the beast, we can’t leave the island.”

“I see.” Hisoka closed his eyes. The gap between them had disappeared. In his dreary half-awake delusions the last few months seemed more like a dream than reality. It was not that long ago when he was at the foot of Kukuroo Mountain. Proposing.

“And, I suppose I didn’t want to see you die either.” Illumi said. His voice was quiet, barely a whisper. If Hisoka had not been paying attention to his every move, he might not have heard it at all.

“Ha,” Hisoka laughed out loud, “I’m glad to see you’re not dead either.” His eyes rolled to the bloodstain on his shoulder. “Did you stab me in the same place as last time?”

Illumi lowered his head to stare at him. Long black hair flowed around his face like curtains, closing the two of them off from the rest of the world. “I finally remembered what happened on the Black Whale.”

“Is that why you stabbed me again when my guard was down?”

“You deserved it after what you did.”

“Hm, I suppose I did deserve it.” Hisoka nodded. 

It took a moment for Illumi to speak again. His voice came out garbled, not at all like the smooth way he would usually enunciate words. “I-I apologize. About before.”

“No need to apologize. I understand. You had forgotten, I lied when I chose not to tell you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I knew it would ruin you, being the dedicated assassin you are. You couldn’t handle the idea of having someone you cared about, or having your own desires outside of your family. Plus it was more fun this way.”

They sat in silence, watching the way the leaves blew across the pond as the wind swept down from the ceiling. 

“I still don’t know how to feel,” Illumi continued, “about you.”

“You don’t need to know now. We have all the time in the world in this paradise.” He relaxed against Illumi’s thigh, smiling to himself. “So, what do we do now?”

Illumi rolled his eyes up and thought for a moment. “I guess we can build a house again. There won’t be a monster to destroy it this time.”

“A bigger one?”

“No, the same size is fine.”

It felt natural, the two of them together. Perhaps it was the long time they spent in each other’s company. Perhaps it was the long absence. Perhaps it was the knowledge that the only other person who could understand them was right there. 

Hisoka reached up and grazed the corner of the other man’s lips. “Can I kiss you?”

“Okay.”

  
  


Hisoka breathed in the earthy smell of Illumi’s hair as he clutched the other’s naked body closer. They were both sweaty from the exertion and sticky with saliva and semen. The heat from the fire pit was a bit uncomfortable. The passing of months led to the warm season. If their hut weren’t on a hill, it would be likely flooded by now. 

He rolled himself onto the other man, ready to mount him again when the blast of a horn filled the air. They turned to look at each other then got up and peaked through the entrance way.

A small light was drifting back and forth in the ocean. Through his aura he saw it was a small boat. A fishing boat most likely. It was still a ways away, maybe another 15 minutes before it reached shore. It must have seen the smoke billowing from the hut on the hill.

“Well what do you know.” Hisoka said under his breath.

  
  


When Hisoka got onboard with the few supplies they had, he placed them in the captain’s quarters and searched through the storage to make sure they had enough water and food for the journey.

The quarters were cramped and poorly maintained. It wasn’t dirty, but it gave off an air of being sparse in possessions. Nothing existed that wasn’t a necessity. Hisoka liked it better this way, it felt like the boat was his own.

After he was done stocking supplies, he went outside and joined Illumi who pulled the last of his needles out of the dead bodies and kicked them overboard. They fell into the ocean with a loud splash, spraying sea water against the hull.

“What will you do when you get back?” Illumi asked.

Hisoka shrugged. “I don’t know. What I’ve always done I suppose, find strong opponents to fight.”

“And the contract?”

“Do you want to break up?”

“No.” The man shook his hair, it was swept up by the gust that came in the mornings.

“Then we’ll still be engaged. Will you bring me to meet your parents?” Hisoka held up his finger and formed the shape of a ring with his aura. 

“I have a feeling they won’t like you.” Illumi replied, but his voice was strangely lighthearted. Almost as if he was attempting to tease. 

Hisoka gestured towards the shore. “I counted the number of days we were on this island.”

“Oh, I had forgotten you did that everyday. How many?” Illumi said as he wiped the blood off each needle and stuck it back into his jacket.

“270.”

“Almost a year then.” 

“Less than I thought.”

Illumi nodded his head and leaned against the railing of the boat. “How long do you think it will take to get back to the mainland?”

“Maybe a month, fishing boats like these aren’t very fast.” Hisoka curled his face into the nape of the man’s neck. “So, 300 days at sea.”

“It felt much longer.” Illumi said and watched the tide lap against the boat’s hull, the weather was gentle this time of the year, it rocked the boat as if singing a lullaby. “It felt the longest when I wasn’t with you.”

Hisoka mumbled into his skin. “That was your fault.”

“You started it.” 

“I give up. I won’t win against you. You’re much too stubborn.” He pointed towards the captain's quarters down the short flight of stairs. “It’s time to celebrate. They have a barrel of booze downstairs.”

Illumi smiled, dimples forming. “Thank you.”

Hisoka felt his heart swell. “What?”

“For all you’ve done for me here.”

“Of course, that’s what friends are for.”

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  



End file.
